- April 25, 2024
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A Palm Coast man arrested earlier this month on charges of drunkenly shooting a handgun into a canal behind his home — then careless pointing it at his wife — ended up alarming one of his neighbors again. This time, the scared elderly neighbor pointed a shotgun at the alleged canal-shooter, 55-year-old Gregory Joseph Marr, according to a Sheriff's Office report.
Both men are seeking charges against the other: Marr wants the elderly neighbor charged with improper exhibition of a firearm, the same charge Marr is facing over the canal shooting. The neighbor, 74-year-old Robert Strong, wants Marr charged with criminal mischief.
It was Strong who called the Sheriff's Office. He told a deputy that at about 9 p.m. May 14, Marr had trespassed on his property and used bolt cutters to cut chain off one of the trees in Strong's yard on Covington Lane. The deputy noted fresh cut marks on the chain, which Strong had used to secure two pieces of bamboo in between two trees like a makeshift fence.
Strong told the deputy that he'd confronted Marr and pointed a shotgun at him while telling him to leave. Then the two men argued, Marr returned to his home on Chelsea Court, and Strong called the Sheriff's Office.
Strong "stated that he did not have the intention of shooting Mr. Marr, but that he was in fear for his safety" because he knew about the canal-shooting case, the deputy wrote in a case report.
And he'd already had neighbor problems on May 13, and had called the Sheriff's Office about that as well. On May 13, he told a deputy, someone pulled one of his bamboo pieces down and removed a political sign from his yard, leaving behind an empty vodka bottle. He thought Marr — who drinks often, Strong told the deputy — was the culprit, and that the vandalism was a misplaced reprisal.
Marr, Strong said, seemed to think that Strong had called Palm Coast code enforcement about Marr keeping a trailer in his driveway. Strong told deputies that he hadn't.
A deputy tried to speak with Marr May 13 about the incident, but Marr "was extremely intoxicated and did not wish to speak with us; he closed the door and told us to go away," a deputy wrote in the report.
Speaking with the deputy May 14, Strong asked to have Marr served a trespass warning to stay off Strong's property. A deputy served the order to Marr, who "was once again intoxicated and very uncooperative," the deputy wrote. Deputies left.
But soon after, Marr called the Sheriff's Office, asking for a deputy to come to his house and take a statement about Strong pointing the shotgun at him.
Marr gave an account very different from Strong's: He was just walking his dog down the road, he said, when he stopped to look at Strong's bamboo fence and Strong confronted him with the shotgun. Marr said he'd never entered Strong's property, and that when Strong confronted him, Marr started yelling "shoot me" and argued with him.
Marr told the deputy that he "wasn’t afraid of Mr. Strong and that he would take the shot gun from him, take it apart, and beat him with it. Mr. Marr advised that he knew how to do this because of his military experience."
Marr described the gun as a silver or grey 10-inch sawed-off shotgun.
The deputy went back to Strong, who said Marr was not walking a dog when the incident occurred, and that he'd been carrying bold cutters. Strong told the deputy he'd been afraid Marr would hit him with the bolt cutters "due to his belief of Mr. Marr’s violent tendencies."
Strong also showed a deputy the shotgun. It was a black 18-inch Mossberg.
Marr, who a deputy wrote in the report was visibly drunk while denying he'd had any alcohol, insisted on filling out a written statement. There were problems with it. "His written statement is poor and does not provide accurate information," the deputy wrote in the report. "In Mr. Marr’s statement he actually lists me as the suspect who pointed the shot gun at him."
Marr said he wanted to pursue charges against Strong for improper exhibition of a firearm. Strong said he wanted to pursue charges against Marr for criminal mischief, for cutting the chain.
Deputies were still investigating when initial reports were submitted.
